


Child's Play

by SilentStorm



Series: Odin Has Terrible Security [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Pre-Thor (2011), Family Bonding, Gen, Internalized racism, Odin's A+ Parenting, headcanons, loki's a bit younger, thor is like ten or eleven years old in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2018-12-20 14:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11923026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentStorm/pseuds/SilentStorm
Summary: It was just a game, but the game went horribly wrong. Now, Loki has a terrible secret that he has to hide from everyone he loves because if he doesn't, he will lose their love forever.If only he could get Thor to mind his own business.(AU in which Odin has terrible security for the vault)





	1. Hide and Seek

**Author's Note:**

> This work is unbeta'd. It's also been sitting completed on my hard drive for about two years now, so I figured if I don't post it now, I probably never will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 11/25/2017: Just a heads up that the first draft of this story was written WELL before Ragnarok came out (we're talking a couple years here) and it's a bit late to go back in and change things now to reflect it, as that would likely result in me restructuring the entire thing again. So while I will be taking Ragnarok into account in any future installments of this series, it won't have any major effect on the events of this story.

Thor flopped onto his bed and let out a long, exasperated sigh. Lessons. Were. So. Boring! Why did he need to sit through them anyway? When he became king, he wouldn’t be doing dumb stuff like calculating how many sheep they needed to produce enough wool for the year. He’d have staff to do that. He’d be too busy fighting the frost giants and protecting Asgard. Important things.

_Knock knock._

Thor lifted his face from the furs. “What?” he groaned.

“Dinner is ready,” a maid called.

Thor pushed himself off the bed and dashed to the door. He pulled it open and the lady there took a step back.

“It’s being served in the—”

“I know where it is!” Thor yelled. He pushed the door open further and ran through. He was past the door to Loki’s room when his own door banged against the wall.

“Thor!”

He ignored her. Dinner was ready and he was _hungry_. He ran past his parents’ quarters and a common sitting room, reaching the family’s own dining room in no time. Loki and their mother were already there, sitting at their spots at the table. The room was much cozier than the hall used for public, formal functions. This room had just a polished wood table, a square just big enough for a family of four with two growing boys.There was another long table and a washstand along one wall, near the door.

“Thor, did you wash up?” Frigga asked.

He looked at his hands. They were streaked with dirt.

“No, he didn’t,” Loki said. “He still has dirt on his face from wrestling this afternoon.”

Thor scowled at him. Loki shrunk a little in his chair.

“Loki, your brother can answer for himself,” Frigga said. “Thor, you know I won’t tolerate dirty hands and faces at this table. Wash up.”

Thor walked over to the washstand, poured fresh water out of the pitcher and rinsed off his dirty hands and dried-on-sweat face. He halfheartedly hung up the dirt-streaked towel when he was done and took his place at the table. “Where’s father?”

“Some important business came up and he won’t be joining us tonight,” Frigga said.

“Oh.” Thor eyed the fish sitting on a platter in the center of the table. “So can we eat now?”

“Yes, we _may_ eat now.”

Thor snatched a fork up and stole a large piece of fish for his own plate. Then, because his mother would scold him if he didn’t, he took a large helping of vegetables. He finished it with a thick slice of seedy bread and a handful of fruit. Thor wolfed his food down and chased it with a cup of milk. Outside of himself, he noticed his mother and brother eating much more slowly and discussing Loki’s day.

“Thor?” Frigga said. “How was your day?”

He swallowed the hunk of break in his mouth and took a sip of milk before he answered. “Boring.”

“Did you learn anything interesting in your lessons?”

“No.”

Loki perked up. “Well, I thought it was interesting.” He launched into a discussion about sheep and wool and Thor shut it out while he went back to eating.

When his plate was clean, he pushed his chair back.

“Thor, where are you going?” Frigga asked.

“Mother, can’t I please go?” Thor whined. He looked over at Loki’s plate, which was still over half-full. “It’ll take forever for Loki to finish eating!” Even his mother, who’d been talking the most during the meal, had an emptier plate than Loki.

“You know the rule. Everyone stays at the table until everyone’s done eating,” Frigga reminded him.

Thor thumped his forehead on the table.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t eat so fast and take the time to enjoy your food.”

“Then maybe you’ll actually get to taste your food,” Loki muttered.

Thor kicked him under the table. Frigga appeared to not notice.

Loki and Frigga continued talking and eating their dinner. Thor listened for about twenty seconds before he got bored and started playing with his fork.

When Loki finally swallowed his last bit of food, Thor stood up so fast his chair squealed backwards.

“Yes Thor, you may go,” Frigga sighed.

He dashed from the room, nearly tripping up a staff member that was entering to clean up. Thor sprinted down the hall, screaming the whole way to let out all the pest-up energy that had been building up all day. He ran into the courtyard at the end of the hall, ran around the edge a few times and then flopped to the ground in a patch of soft grass. He lied there, catching his breath and looking at the sky above. It was turning a darker blue and a bright star was just starting to appear.

Thor sat up when he heard someone approach. He turned and saw Loki over his shoulder. His expression soured. “What do you want?”

The smaller boy stopped a few feet away from Thor. “I just wanted to see you today. Without Mother around.”

Thor turned his back on him. “Well, you saw me. Now you can go.”

The grass rustled a bit behind him, but it didn’t sound like Loki moved. After several more seconds of silence, Thor turned around again. Loki was indeed still there, standing in a way that made him look even smaller than he already was. “Why are you still here?”

“I’m sorry that I told mother that you were in another fight today.”

Thor turned away and stared at the flowering shrub in front of him. “She didn’t get mad, so it doesn’t matter.”

There was another beat of silence. Finally, Loki said, “I’m sorry about this morning too. The thing with the honey. It was probably too much.”

Thor snorted.

“I thought you’d find it funny too. That’s why I did it. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you’d be angry with me.”

After a long moment of quiet, Thor turned around again. Loki was still there, he’d been so quiet Thor wasn’t sure if he was still there, but he was looking down at the ground. “Well,” Thor relented, “Maybe I’ll think it’s funny a few years from now. Like Father and the bilngschipe.”

A shadow of a smile appeared on Loki’s face. “You think so?”

“Maybe. I’ll forgive you, for now.”

Loki’s posture straightened and he bounced a bit on the balls of his feet. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” He lied back on the grass. “Did you want something else?”

“Well,” he started. He nervously picked at a fingernail absentmindedly. “I was wondering, if you’re not mad at me anymore, if maybe you wanted to do something.”

“Like what?”

“I was hoping for, only if you want to of course, maybe we could play hide and seek?”

Thor sighed. He saw Loki’s expression fall a bit. “I guess it would be all right. But I get to hide first. I might not get to hide at all if you go first.”

Loki smirked.

* * *

“1, 2, 3. . .”

Loki slipped quietly away. Where would Thor dare not go that he could sneak into this time? Just because he could get away with hiding in one of his old spots didn’t mean he had to.

He walked swiftly down the hall, listening for Thor. He hadn’t been counting on his own, so he wasn’t sure if Thor had started searching for him yet. He was about to turn a corner when he heard Thor’s footsteps. Arrogant, but still small compared to any of the adults. Loki slipped into an alcove down the hall, in between two statues. The space was tight, he was finally starting to grow too big for it, but he couldn’t be found there. Thor had outgrown it years ago and therefore wouldn’t even think to look there.

Several minutes after Thor passed him without incident, he shimmied his way out and started walking down the corridor in the opposite direction. He took several winding staircases down deeper into the palace, deeper than he’d ever gone. There were no longer lamps hanging on the walls to light his way, so he tried out a spell he had found in one of his books that day. After several attempts, he got a dim green light that flickered when he walked. But it was enough for him to keep track of where he’d been so he wouldn’t get lost.

The tunnels he was traveling in now were smooth and square, probably carved a long time ago. There were several water lines on the walls and a pile-up of sand where the walls met the floor. Even in the middle where he was walking, there were swirls of sand that his footsteps were disturbing.

He passed many other halls that disappeared into inky darkness, but rather than risking getting lost, he kept going as straight as he could. But the tunnel twisted almost as much as if he’d gone down every turn. It felt like a very long time before he came to a dead end. His little light gained a bit of strength when he stopped. How long had he been walking down here? Had Thor given up on finding him yet? He almost always did. One time, he hadn’t even bothered to tell Loki that he quit and Loki had sat in an empty cauldron until a cook found him.

His light winked out. A squeal escaped his lips and he started snapping his fingers. Why couldn’t he get it to start again? Something flashed bright green in his palm. A _bang_  and a blast of heat leftLoki on his rear and rubbing his brow ridge. The hair there felt thinner and patchy. Well, that would be hard to explain. Bits of your eyebrows didn’t just decide to fall off your face on their own. Maybe he could draw some on until they grew back and no one would notice? Well, Mother might, but she’d probably understand.

Loki stood up, rubbed the sand off his butt and looked up at the ceiling. It was just as—no, it _wasn’t_ as dark as the rest of the tunnel had been. There was definitely a faint glowing outline of a square. A trap door? Where did it lead?

He snapped his fingers again and the light returned easily this time, but he didn’t take notice that it was brighter than his first one. He was searching for something to boost him up to the ceiling, like maybe a crate. Unfortunately, the tunnel was as empty as it had first appeared. There was nothing like a crate down there. But he did find a pile of rocks, probably from when the tunnel was dug out. He wasn’t strong enough to move most of them, but after rolling up his sleeves to prevent them from getting singed and some experimenting, he got his exploding-light spell to move one of the mid-size rocks on the edge of the pile. He definitely didn’t have eyebrows by the time the rock was under the trapdoor, but when he climbed on top of the rock, he could easily reach the door. He pushed it up a few inches and peeked out.

The floor was smooth and dark, covered in tiles. There were several pedestals that he could see from his low vantage point, though he could not spot what was resting atop them. But there was no one else in there with him. Loki pushed the tile off to one side and climbed out. It was a long hall with little rooms on either side, each containing a great treasure. There, just behind him was the hammer Mjölnir. He was in the closely guarded treasure room. Thor would _never_ find him in here.

Loki took notice of the trapdoor's location, then started looking at the relics. As long as he stayed quiet, the guards at the doors wouldn’t notice him. They weren’t expecting intruders from the inside.

Their father had shown them around inside just recently, so names of many of the treasures immediately jumped to mind. He paused his scan when his eyes landed on the Casket of Ancient Winters. Of all the things in the vault that he knew the story of, the Casket was the most fascinating to him. How could such a savage group of creatures have possessed something as beautiful as that?

He didn’t touch it, that would have been stupid, but he did let his hand hover just next to the glowing blue object. The blue light shining through his fingers made it almost look like his skin itself was blue. He could _feel_ the cold coming off it, not like the biting cold that could burn a man when they touched the skin of a frost giant, but like entering one of the cool, damp basements of the palace after a long, hot summer day.

Loki took his hand away, intending to move on. But when the blue light left his skin, the blue tint did not. He turned his hand over.

His palm was blue. Definitely blue. Blue like the illustrations in his storybooks. There was no way this was a trick of the light. The blue color started leaching away as he watched until it was back to its pale, Asgardian color. The color it was supposed to be. Because he was definitely of Asgard.

It had to be a fluke, right? If he put his hand close again, nothing would happen. Maybe he’d feel cold. That was it.

He looked towards the doorway again. There had been no movement. He was still alone.

Loki moved his hand close to the Casket again. He let it hover there, a few scant inches away. The blue light once again creeped through his fingers, giving not warmth, but comforting coolness.

A tremendous _BANG_ gonged through the building, ringing in his ears and up from the floor. Loki stumbled in shock and jostled the stand. The Casket slid and Loki, not considering the consequences beyond the possibility of the Casket falling to the floor and breaking, seized one of the handles and slid it back into place. He shifted it a bit to make sure it was centered on the pedestal again, then let go.

His hands were still blue.

Loki backed away. The blue did not fade. He pulled up one of his sleeves, all the way up to his elbow. The blue color continued all the way up and beyond the hem of his sleeve. And his arm wasn’t just blue, there were fine lines seemingly etched into his skin that ran down to the back of his hand, straight but smooth.

Loki had never seen an Asgardian with those.

_“The Casket of Ancient Winters is a relic of the frost giants. Only one of their kind can hold the casket in their bare hands without harm coming to them.”_

Both of Loki’s hands were blue.

There were angry murmurs at the door.

He tugged at his shirt collar and looked down at his chest. Blue.

The doors rattled.

Loki dashed back to the trap door and dropped back down below. He slipped on the boulder still underneath, but managed to scramble back up and set the tile back into place. There were only the barest cracks of light coming in around the edges. The tile rattled in place, but Loki didn't wait to find out why. He sprinted away down the tunnel.

* * *

 Miles away, at the entrance to the Bifrost, Heimdall let out a heavy sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanfiction published in a long time, and the first time I've ever published anything on AO3. Comments, especially constructive ones, are very encouraged.


	2. Fear and Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki attempts to deal with the revelation about his identity. Thor tries to figure out what exactly it is that's bothering his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor's kind of an insensitive clod in this chapter. I figured he's never navigated something like this before, and he's a pretty young kid.

Loki awoke suddenly and violently. The heat, which had seemed so unbearable before, was just a tangle of blankets he was trapped in. As he began to recognize his bedroom around him, his racing breaths slowed. The lighting was dim, his curtains still drawn, only a crack of light coming inand crawling across the floor, creeping up his desk and climbing about halfway up the wall before it stopped short. Loki started untangling himself from his blankets and looked over himself. Everywhere he looked, it was smooth, ivory skin. A quick peek in a small mirror he kept by his bed now showed the same of his face, his eyes their usual greenish color.

He wondered how many more times he would wake up this way.

Loki peeked through the crack in the curtains. It was bright and sunny, exactly what he was hoping for. Thor would definitely be outside somewhere, and he would be left all to himself.

Half an hour later found him walking by himself to the library. It hadn’t changed since he’d last been inside. There were shelves further than he could see filled with more books than even an Asgardian could read in a lifetime, stations for accessing materials that were not in physical books, and plenty of tables for studying or working. Loki looked to the head librarian sitting at his desk. He spotted Loki and nodded. Loki gave him a curt nod back. Most visitors to the library had guides to help them find what they were searching for. Loki, after a bit of convincing, was given free reign. He often tired out the library aides that had been forced to accompany him before, either by quickly running down their patience or physically exhausting them as he ran through the aisles, eager for another book.

Loki ignored the children’s section. He’d read nearlyevery book in that section, and if he hadn’t, anything left wouldn’t do much good. The morality of children was too black and white. He wouldn’t find what he was searching for in there.

A library aide looked at him funny as Loki entered the adults’ non-fiction area, the vast majority of the library. It was mostly scholarly works, but surely there were a few that a boy who was “too clever for his own good” could manage.

The section he was looking for was small. There were others that were larger, had far more books, but any books of war would only put Asgard in a kind light. It was book on culture he searched for, the only ones he could think of that might portray frost giants with a neutral view.

When he did find the correct section, finding books to start with was difficult. There didn’t seem to be any shelves dedicated solely to the frost giants, unlike many of the other major races of the realms. But he found a couple of books to start with and set himself up at one of the reading tables. After attempting to plow through the introduction of one, he fetched a dictionary too.

Each book was worse than the last. The first one detailed the truce made at the end of the last war between the Asgardians and the frost giants.

_“The Jotuns proved for the first time in recorded history that they were indeed creatures capable of reasoning, as they were willing to set down rules in their dealings with another race. Never before had they agreed to any form of diplomacy, always choosing warfare instead.”_

The book quickly devolved into dates and terms of the treaty, so Loki shut the book, shoved it to one side and moved on to the next one. This one had only a section on them, so Loki turned directly to it.

_“Residents of the frozen, barren Jotunheim, the Jotuns, also known as frost giants, are colder and more ruthless than their homeland. They will murder anyone that steps food in their realm without question and are also know for their many ages of conquest and genocide.”_

Loki slammed the book shut and immediately tried another, blinking away the tears forming in his eyes as he scanned the table of contents.

Every book revealed more of the same. Liars. Theives. Murderers. There were no redeeming features. No singular frost giant that defected or even showed a bit of good will.

_“The only good Jotun is a dead Jotun.”_

_“Kill them before they have the chance to stab you in the back.”_

_“Heartless murderers.”_

_“A savage race of beings, little more than animals with speech.”_

_“Monsters.”_

Loki shook with the sobs he tried to stifle, his handkerchief, clean when he entered the library, was soggy and useless. But there were still so many books. Surely one of them had the answer he needed.

“Brother!”

Loki slammed the next book shut on the index. Why was he here? And so loud?

“Why are you still inside on such a day? You’ve been in here for ages! Hey, are you crying?”

Loki wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Dusty books.”

“All the more reason to leave.” Thor seized his hand and tugged. “Let's go!”

Loki stumbled out of his chair to avoid being pulled to the floor and looked to the library aide. She was glaring ever so slightly at Thor and her lips were pressed into a thin line. She caught Loki’s gaze and waved dissmissively. “Go on, I can put your books away. I’m sure it will be quieter after you leave.”

“Come then!” Thor dragged Loki out of the library at a run, several people shushing them on the way out. “There’s something I’ve got to show you!”

“Thor, we are in a library!” he hissed.

Thor blew through the doors and continued running down the hall. “No we’re not!” he screamed.

Loki only went fast enough to match pace with the taller Thor to avoid being dragged on the ground. Together they ran through the palace, dodging people and their burdens, until Thor took him outside. He finally started slowing down. Loki immediately understood why. There were hundreds of people there that Loki had never seen before, all with their hands full or directing others. The things they carried varied wildly, from poles and boards to baskets of fruit and cloth, but everything looked colorful and bright. “Thor, what’s going on?”

“There’s a festival tomorrow!”

There certainly was a lot to see, even on the day before. But festival runners didn’t like having idle children underfoot, even idle princes, so they each received a peach and got sent on their way. Loki found a stone wall they could climb and they sat up there to watch the proceedings and eat their peaches. They spent the afternoon up there, lunch supplied by passing fair runners with a full basket of goodies to sell during the fair. They were both pointing out things for the other to see, and as they were stationed where the main thoroughfare and the fairgrounds met, there was plenty to see. The supper hour was nearing when the fair runners slowed down, much of their work done. Both their stomachs were growling for a meal when they climbed down the wall.

“What were you reading about frost giants in the library for?” Thor asked.

Dread creeped up from Loki’s stomach. In the excitement of the afternoon, he’d forgotten all about it.

“Loki?”

His silence would quickly become suspicious, even to Thor, so he lied by omission. “Father said something the other day about frost giants. It made me wonder if there were ever any good frost giants.”

Thor stopped dead and stared at him. “Good frost giants? There’s no such thing. Haven’t you listened to the rest of father’s stories? Frost giants are evil. All they ever do is kill people.”

Loki’s hands curled into tight little fists. He fought to keep his voice steady when he spoke. “But couldn’t there be one or two that weren’t like that? Asgardians are all supposed to be good if you believe father’s stories, but they’re not! There are thieves and criminals. If there can be exceptions among Asgardians, why not the frost giants?”

Thor folded his arms and frowned as he thought. “Well, I suppose there might be one or two.”

Loki relaxed a bit. “Would you kill a good frost giant? I know you said you wanted to kill all of them, but maybe if they promised to leave everyone alone, might you let them be?”

Thor thought a bit more before he answered. “I suppose, if they have already proven to not be a threat and they promise they will not hurt anyone, then perhaps. But that is only if I find a good frost giant and I don’t think they are real.”

But that was enough to give Loki some hope. An idea. “That sounds like something father would say.”

Thor brightened “Do you really think so?”

“Yes. And you are the one that is going to be king one day.”

Thor beamed.

As they ran down the path back to the palace, Thor prattling on about all sorts of things he would do as king, each more childish and ridiculous than the last, Loki couldn’t keep his own tiny, nervous smile off his face. He had a chance. If he could just be good until he got found out, _if_ he got found out, he could prove that he was the exception to the rule. His life might be spared. He wouldn’t get to see Thor or the rest of Asgard again. That would be awful, he would miss the people he’d thought were his family, but maybe they wouldn’t all completely hate him. It was his best shot. He had a plan. He could do this.

* * *

He couldn’t do this. They were supposed to be learning swordsmanship, but Loki was quickly learning that this, like so many other things he was _supposed_ to be good at, that he’d been throwing himself into for _months,_ was something he had no talent in it. He was paired with the youngest in their class. The other boy was also the smallest, except for him. But even though the boy was the second shortest, he was far from the weakest, build solidly already despite his age. Unlike Loki, who was build small and thin in every aspect.

_“Like a girl.”_

Loki tried another head-on strike that they were practicing, but it was easily knocked aside. When it was the other boy’s turn to strike, he easily knocked aside Loki’s block and hit him in the gut, harder than they were supposed to. Loki successfully resisted his initial reaction to double over in pain, instead yelling and channeling his pain into a return swing. He got the other boy in the shin.

“Loki!” the trainer bellowed. “What are we drilling?”

“Middle,” he muttered. He grunted with another attempt at hitting the boy.

* * *

 Loki walked back from lessons late in the afternoon, aching. He winced when someone thumped his shoulder.

“Loki!”

He sighed and turned around. Thor’s grin fell. “You do not look well. Was your day not pleasant?”

“No.”

“I thought you enjoyed lessons very much. Even I found them interesting. Some of them were rather exciting.”

There had been a discussion of a war with frost giants and an impromptu reenactment. Thor played the part of his grandfather Bor as he took out several of their classmates that were playing as frost giants. Thor and his companions were reprimanded, then corrected to portray the battle more accurately. Loki had been sitting on the opposite side of the room, trying not to puke. “I didn’t like it. And I was sore from practice this morning. I’m not getting any better and master Svenson is threatening to move me down another level.”

Thor frowned. “But he can not do that. There is no level lower than the one you’re in.”

“I _know_.”

“To fight someone younger, you would have to fight young children, one that aren’t even in school yet-”

Loki slammed his books on the ground. “I know!” He kicked the pile of his things, scattering papers everywhere.

“Brother, are you crying?”

“No!” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, which came away damp.

“We are getting too old to cry Loki. If you continue, people might—”

“Call me a girl? They do that regardless!”

“Loki—”

“No!” He pushed Thor away and ran. Down the road, past the garden, through the palace and up to his bedroom, where he could slam his door and cry in his bed without interruption.

* * *

 Thor took a few steps to go after his brother, but stopped. If there was one physical activity Loki was good at, it was running. If he didn’t want to be caught, he wouldn’t be. Instead, Thor gathered up the papers and things that Loki scattered and piled them up on top of his own. His brother loved school normally, he would surely be disappointed if something happened to his things. After reassuring his school friends that he would not be joining them for games on the way home, he set out after Loki.

He found him in his bedroom, the door shut and locked. He nearly lost the pile of papers and books when he tried the latch, so he knocked on the door with his foot. “Loki?”

“Go away Thor.”

“I have your things from school. Do you not want them?”

Thor heard a rustle from inside the room, then footsteps. Loki opened the door a few inches and looked at the pile. He grabbed his things out of Thor’s hands and tried to shut the door. Thor stuck his foot in, preventing it from closing. “I apologize for my words. I realized as I was walking here why you found them upsetting.”

Loki glared, but stopped trying to shut his foot in the door.

“Is there anything I could do to make it up to you? Perhaps sparring with me? Maybe you only need more practice.”

Loki visibly winced at the suggestion.

“We need not start today, nor even do it at all! It was merely a suggestion. Is there something you prefer?”

Loki stared at the ground, probably thinking. Thor, standing back a bit from the door again to be in a more comfortable stance, ran through possibilities. What did Loki do or need help with that he could offer his aid in? After a minute of pondering, he thought of something and his expression soured at the idea. But it was something that Loki seemed to need help with, if his determination after it over the last few months was any indication.

“You still go to the library often instead of accepting my invitation to play with my friends. Are you still searching for proof of a good frost giant?”

Loki looked up from the floor, taken aback. He gulped and nodded.

“Would it go faster if there were two searching?”

Loki frowned a tiny bit. “It would, but you hate the library.”

“I do. But I am trying to apologize to you, not you to me.”

Loki looked pensive again, then nodded. “All right. One night. But it does not need to be tonight. Perhaps the next day it rains?”

“Good thinking! We shall both be trapped indoors anyway.”

Loki nodded. “Is that all?”

Thor looked up at the ceiling, attempting to come up with something else, but failing. “I believe so.”

“All right.”

_Click._

Thor looked back down and saw Loki’s door, shut tight right in front of him.

“Loki?”

“Go away Thor.”The lock in the door clicked.

He reached for the doorknob, but stopped. His many attempts to bring his brother out of his chambers in the past months had been unsuccessful when he got into this mood. Why would now, when Loki clearly had something to be upset about, be any different?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hoping it would take me about a week to update this, but here we are. There was a lot more in this chapter to fix than I remembered, and I kept putting it off. My apologies.


	3. Frustration and Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki go to the library. It goes about as well as you could expect.

Despite all the wind they had and autumn settling in, it was nearly a week later when it finally rained, and it was a spectacular storm. It fell down in thick, heavy sheets and though the sun had definitely come up, it was still dark as night outside. Worse yet, it fell on a day off school. A whole day that could be spent playing outdoors was going to be wasted inside, and he was going to be in the library.

For the first time that Thor could remember, Loki was the one to finish breakfast first. The smaller boy didn’t look at or speak to him through the whole meal, his custom recently. Even when he cleared his dishes and left them neatly stacked for a kitchen maid to clean, Loki’s gaze slipped right past him, as if he wasn’t there.

Thor dawdled over his food a bit longer, thinking. Why hadn’t Loki said anything? Surely he’d noticed the rain. All the lights indoors were lit. Maybe he’d forgotten? But that didn’t seem much like Loki either. What was going on?

Thor finally got bored of not eating his food, so he cleared his plate and left as well. Loki was not waiting for him outside, nor was he by their rooms. The halls were filled with more people than usual due to the weather, but it didn’t take Thor long to search them either. Loki did not appear. Did he go straight to the library? Maybe he really had forgotten about their deal.

The library was busy too, probably the rain again, so Thor had no trouble sneaking in past the librarian. He knew where he was going, at least when it came to finding Loki’s spot. He’d made several unsuccessful attempts to get Loki outside and memorized his favorite tables to study at.

Thor weaved between people, going straight for the one that Loki liked in a back corner when the library was busy. His brother was indeed there, four stacks of books blocking his face from the aisle. He was sitting on the of the larger adult chairs to reach the high table, so his feet didn’t reach the ground. His toes were just above the rug underneath the table, not close enough to catch when he swung them back and forth. Thor walked behind him and looked at his workspace. He had a large book open in the middle of the table, propped up on something. Probably so he could read the letters, which were somewhat faded. Directly in front of him, he also had a blank book with unlined pages that he was taking notes in. Thor tapped him on the shoulder.

Loki jumped and spun around in his chair, leaving a long black line on the page with his pen. Oddly enough, he looked terrified when he first turned, but seemed to relax a bit when he realized who was behind him. “Thor? What are you doing here?”

“Did you forget?” he whispered. “I promised I would help you on the next rainy day.”

Loki looked a little sheepish before he started staring at the ground. “I didn’t forget. I thought you forgot.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

Loki’s legs stopped swinging and stayed tucked under his chair. “I know you don’t want to be here and I thought you’d just think of some excuse to get out of it.”

“What?”

A nearby library aide shushed him. He crouched down to get into Loki’s view and continued in a whisper. “I wouldn’t do that! I made a promise. And a man,” he said, thumping his chest with a fist, “Always keeps his promises.”

“You’re still just a boy, same as me,” Loki pointed out.

“Boy or not, I honor my promises. And besides, you are my brother. I don’t mind helping you when you need it. I’m sure you’d do the same for me, would you not?”

Finally, Loki looked up at him. He looked as if he might start to cry, his lip pouting a bit and the corners of his eyes screwed up just a touch, but the moment passed and Loki suddenly seemed full of resolve. “Of course I would help you if I could.”

“Well then, where should I start?”

* * *

It was exactly as boring as he thought it would be. Loki gave him a stack of books (“The easy ones. These have indexes.”) and told him to look for  any mention of frost giants or Jotunheim, mark the spot and set it aside for the next book. When he’d exhausted his stack of books, he tried  looking through one of the ones that Loki had left for himself, but he gave up very quickly. Many of the books that they were going through had repeat information and reading any of them, repeat information or not, was very tedious. Loki always took notes if it was something new, but most of the time he’d skim whatever Thor had found for him and move on to the next passage.

Thor started putting away the books after Loki was done with them. Loki looked up from his notes after the first couple went on the shelf, leaped from his chair and snatched them back again. Loki informed him that there was a specific order in how the books were arranged on the shelves, he could not just put them away helter-skelter. After a quick lesson in the library’s system, he left Thor shelving books to keep taking notes. When Thor ran out of books to shelve, he started going through the shelves where Loki left off, looking for anything that might mention frost giants. Most of the books were dusty and made his eyes water and almost all of them were filled with nothing but words. But he kept bringing them back to Loki’s table if he thought they might help.

He was pulling out a large book, one that he would have to open on the table so he wouldn’t drop it, when a very thin book slipped out and dropped to the floor. Thor slid the large book back into its spot on the shelf and picked up the small one. The cover was cloth, blue and the title, long since rubbed off, had been stamped on in gold. There were still a few flecks of letters left. There was also a funny stain near the top of the spine. Thor cracked it open and started paging through it. Finally, a book with some pictures. Even though it wasn’t exactly what Loki said he was looking for, he might still find it interesting. He’d been peeking at his brother’s notes and Loki seemed to be taking notes about frost giants in general. Thor ran back to Loki’s table and tossed the little book onto the large volume Loki was reading out of. His brother jumped and left a large blot of ink on the page.

“Take a look at that one!” Thor said in an excited whisper. His words earned a glare from Loki and a shush from a nearby patron. He lowered his voice again. “I know you said you were looking for things about good frost giants, but this one is really weird.”

Loki glared for a moment longer before he set down his pen and picked up the book to page through it.

“It’s a whole bunch of drawings of the insides of frost giants compared to Asgardians. Gross, right?”

The last time Thor had shown him such a thing, nearly a year before during the Yule season, Loki laughed along with him. But now as Loki paged through the book, he grew visibly paler. Thor didn’t know how Loki managed to get paler than he already was, but the boy was as white as fresh snow when he slammed the book shut. “I’ll look at that one later.” He was rougher than usual when he jammed the book in between two others in one of his piles. He picked up his pen, crossed out the ruined sentence and started writing it over. His color also started improving, so Thor leaned across the table to get a better look at his notes.

Loki’s writing, despite being written with an old-fasioned ink pen, was neat and legible for his age, better than Thor’s with a stick of chalk or graphite. So reading the notes was easy.

“They started a civil war because some guy’s fence got busted?” Thor read aloud. He frowned. “I thought you were looking for nice frost giants.”

Loki propped the book up so the pages were facing his chest and glared at Thor with loathing etched into every curve of his thin face. Thor leaned back a bit.

“You may leave any time you want to. You’ve been in here all morning and you’ve helped me enough.”

“But I could help you more if you like.”

“You’re bored to tears, anyone could see that. Our deal is complete. Go.” He closed his notebook, picked up one of the library books and propped it up in front of him to read, completely blocking him from view. Thor goose-stepped around to Loki’s side of the table. “I said I would help you.”

“I don’t want help.”

Thor wasn’t expecting it, so when Loki shoved him, Thor stumbled back a step. Thor planted his feet and got ready to push Loki’s chair over, but he was blocked by a sudden wall of fabric. He looked up. One of the library aides had come between them, apparently fed up with their antics.

“That is quite enough. I think it would be best if both of you left the library for the day.”

“But, my books—” Loki protested.

“I can do my job and shelve them for you. Go on.”

Loki walked around the woman, clutching his leather-bound notebook. Thor lunged, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Loki flinched and walked briskly away in the direction of the entrance. “You will exit separately,” the aide said. “I will not have any fights in the library. And when you leave, you will walk, understand?”

“I am a prince!” Thor exclaimed, trying to shrug her hand away. “You have no right to treat me this way!”

She crouched down to look at him eye to eye. “Everyone must obey the rules of the library, royalty or not. If you continue to protest, I can call for your parents.”

Thor sobered immediately and stood stiff as a board until she dismissed him as well. He walked out of the library, looking for Loki on the way. There was no guarantee he’d followed directions and actually left, but Thor did not spot him. When he crossed the threshold and entered the corridor, he took off at a run. Surely Loki hadn’t gone too far.

* * *

Thor searched for his brother for a very long time before he finally gave up. His brother did not seem to want to be found. But the long, stormy afternoon did give him time to think. Being stuck indoors cooled his temper enough that when he saw his brother at supper, he was able to greet him with no malice and apologize for yelling. Loki in return stared at the floor, muttered something unintelligible, and sat in his chair. He stayed quiet the whole time, allowing Thor to take center stage. Thor told his father, who had not made it to supper for several nights, all about that he’d missed. He glossed over the day in the library, but went into great detail about his growing skill with weaponry in lessons. It was apparently a very boring topic for Loki, Thor forgot until later that his brother was having so much trouble, so Loki mostly picked at his food. There was still a great deal for them to talk about, so Thor was still animatedly chattering away when the lights went out.

Several things clattered to the floor out in the hall and someone screamed. Before Thor could react, a flickering orb of green light winked on across the table. In between the brighter flashes, he could see Loki’s pale face behind it, his hands cupped underneath it. Thor couldn’t help but stare. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Where did you learn to do that?” Frigga asked.

Loki looked around the table, first at his mother, then Thor, then his father. He looked at Odin for the shortest amount of time before he dropped his gaze into his lap. “From a book,” he said.

“That’s very impressive dear,” Frigga told him.

“Especially at such a young age,” Odin added.

Loki ducked his head and the light orb flickered.

“Let’s light some candles so you may eat too.” Their mother stood from the table and came back with four lit candles that she placed near each diner. Loki dropped his hands and the orb disappeared. They finished their supper like that, though this time, Loki bashfully answered questions from his mother. He seemed to feign deafness at Thor’s and for once, Odin didn’t comment on it.

Thor gave up trying to talk to Loki during the meal, determined to try cornering him after dinner. But Loki managed to slither away in no time, leaving Thor to wander the halls. He eventually made his way back to the family’s quarters, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his time after supper, alone. The storm outside was still going weakly and the main power was out. Everything was being dimly lit by the reserve power in the halls, those lights only bright enough to prevent tripping. If he wanted any light in his room, he’d probably have to light candles. And what was he going to do all by himself, indoors, with only candlelight? Read a book?

He heard a door creak up ahead. He quieted his footsteps on the stone floors and creeped closer. Someone pulled the door shut, but when Thor was crouched next to it, he could hear his parents talking.

“It’s remarkable and almost completely unheard of. Why won’t you give him that chance?”

“Unheard of for a boy Frigga, but not for a girl.,” Odin said.

“He produced a spell that he taught himself from a book without any prior instruction in the field at such an age. I can count the number who have achieved that on one hand.”

“With you among them.”

“That has little bearing on the matter.”

“It means you’re biased in the matter. Tell me, besides Loki, how many of those children that you counted were boys?”

Frigga remained silent.

“As I said, magic is not something a man need concern himself with beyond the basics.”

“You say that with all your tricks and sorcery?” Frigga challenged.

“I am a king.”

“And he is a prince,” Frigga reminded him.

Odin’s voice turned low and dangerous. “Frigga.”

Thor heard the sound of a chair scrape against the floor. He sat there in the silence, fists clenched on his knees, waiting.

Odin broke first. “You know my views on this Frigga.”

Unlike her husband, she sounded cold and authoritative when she spoke again. “And you know mine.”

“And you think it wise to teach such things to Loki?”

“Would you rather have someone with that much raw talent go untrained? If someone does not teach him not only the how, but the why, he will teach himself. You know he will. Do you want to be the one the blame falls on if that does not go well?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“He could get himself killed if he does not understand what he’s doing.” After a pause, she continued. “Or he could do exactly what you seem to fear.”

“It is a relevant possibility.”

“It is if this continues. He’s our _son_.”

There was another click from a chair. The silence was longer this time. Odin was the one that broke it again. “Very wall, but all of this is your responsibility. I shall not interfere in this matter.”

“Of course.”

There was more chair sliding and soft footsteps approaching the door. Thor scrambled for a place to hide, but it was an empty corridor. The door opened. He tried to run, but there was already a hand on his shoulder. Thor turned around and looked up at his mother. She lit a light globe much like Loki’s earlier, but it was larger, steady and bright and the golden color of her own magic. She took her hand off his shoulder, shut the door and put a finger to her lips. Thor relaxed a bit, nodded and took the hand she offered. They walked silently down the hall to his mother’s chambers. She released the light globe and it dimmed, but hung obediently in the air where she left it. They sat down on cushions.

“Thor, what did you hear your father and I talking about in there?”

Thor looked up at her. She didn’t look mad, but she was definitely expecting an answer, she looked concerned. “You were talking about Loki. And magic. Are you going to teach Loki how to do magic?”

“If he wishes. What else did we talk about?”

She definitely wasn’t mad, so Thor relaxed and scrunched up his face in thought. “Father said that magic is only for girls. Is that true? Because kids at school already tease him and call him a girl. Why don’t boys learn magic?”

“It is an old tradition, nothing more. Some may defend it by saying that only girls ever become skilled with magic, but how are boys supposed to be good at something if they are never encouraged?”

Thor nodded. “That makes sense. So is the reason girls are never good at fighting because no one lets them, or is that a boy thing?”

“Where did this come from?”

“There’s a girl I see sometimes who wants to learn how to fight with a sword. But everyone always tells her that girls don’t fight with swords.”

“What does she say to that?”

“She says that if she’s good at the sword, then girls _do_ fight with swords, because she is a girl.”

“And?”

“What she says has logic. But I thought girls were too weak to properly use a sword, they’re too heavy.”

“Maybe because no one lets them.”

Thor thought about her words, eventually circling back to Loki. “So Loki won’t be any good at magic unless we let him be?”

“That is reasonable to assume. If he does choose to study it, will you make fun of him for it?”

Thor gaped at her. “Of course not! If he does magic, it’s a thing boys do! And even if I did make fun of him, he’d probably turn me into a frog.”

His mother smiled. “Good. He might need a lot of encouragement to get started and it will need to begin with us.”

“Does father not like Loki?”

His mother’s smile vanished. “What makes you say that?”

“Sometimes he says things.” Thor couldn’t think of any one thing in particular, but it sometimes crossed his mind and his parent’s discussion earlier made him think of it again.

She put a hand on his knee. “I think Loki and your father are different enough from each other that he has a harder time relating to Loki than he does to you, so he doesn’t always know what to say. But never doubt that he loves both of you equally. You can be a bit difficult to deal with yourself.”

Thor smiled sheepishly.

“Loki!” his mother called. Thor looked around, but didn’t see his brother in the room. He was about to ask her about it when she continued. “You may enter.”

Thor twisted around to look at the door. It slowly creaked open and Loki peered in.

“Come in dear.”

Loki opened the door just wide enough for him to slip inside, then closed it again almost noiselessly. Thor enthusiastically patted the cushions next to him. Loki twitched at the noise, but walked over and sat down timidly next to him.

“Well,” their mother said. “It appeared I have two eavesdroppers instead of just one.”

“Are you going to tell father?” Loki asked.

She leaned in close. “There are some things your father does not need to know. But before I release you, I need both of you to tell me something. Do you understand why you should not eavesdrop?”

Loki licked his lips and spoke in a tone that suggested tired memorization. “If you are not invited to a conversation, it is not meant for you to hear and it is your own fault if you burn your ears.”

Thor scowled. “What sort of nonsense is that? And the conversation was about Loki. Should he not be a part of it?”

“Your father and I wanted to be sure that we were in agreement before we discussed this with Loki, to ensure it would go smoothly.”

“Like a rehearsal?” Loki suggested.

“Exactly.”

“And what of the rest of what Loki said?” Thor asked.

“It is rare for an eavesdropper to know the full story behind the conversation and it takes very little for overheard words to be misinterpreted. If either one of you left before I caught you, what do you think could have happened?”

Both boys were silent as they thought. Thor answered first. “I might have thought father didn’t like Loki. But he does.”

She nodded. “Loki?”

He stared down at his hands, which he was wringing in his lap and mumbled something Thor didn’t catch. But whatever it was, it seemed to be enough for their mother. She smiled. “That’s enough of that then. One last thing. Loki, if you like, I can teach you magic. You don’t have to decide on anything tonight, I want you to take some time to think about it.”

“Yes mother.”

“Now both of you,” she said sternly “To bed. I do not want to catch you at any more closed doors tonight.”

They both gave her a hug and kiss before they went back to their rooms. Loki shot down any attempts at conversation by Thor, claiming exhaustion, and they went to sleep.


	4. Secrets and Lies

Thor’s eyes shot open. Someone was screaming. He tried rolling over to get untangled from the single blanket he hadn’t thrown off in the night and ended up half on the floor, his legs up in the air. As he lay there, trying to regain his bearings and catch his breath, he figured out where the brief scream had came from, a room right next to his own. Loki’s bedroom. He untangled himself from the blanket, stood up and left his room.

Thor didn’t fetch his parents. Their rooms were well down the corridor, too far away from then to hear him or his brother if they started fussing in the night. Normally, this wasn’t a problem. They were both old enough that they did not need their parents to comfort them after every nightmare. They were also old enough to protest their help if it was offered, Loki especially. He’d stopped even sooner than Thor had, looking to Thor for comfort instead. Even that stopped after a few months. But very occasionally, Loki would scream loud enough for Thor to hear and they both ended up asleep in one or the other’s bed.

Thor knocked quietly on Loki’s door. He heard a rustle inside. After a pause, the door opened inward and Loki’s face appeared in the crack. The lights in the hallway were dimmed for the night and Loki’s room was completely dark, so Thor couldn’t tell if his brother had been crying or not.

“What do you want?” Loki asked, glowering.

“I thought I heard you scream. Are you well? A nightmare?” Thor whispered.

Loki pressed his lips tightly together. “I did not scream. Perhaps you did and you woke yourself up?” he said cooly.

Thor frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t think so.”

“Either way, it was not me. I do not need your comforting, so you may go back to bed.” He started to shut the door.

Thor slid his bare foot into the crack, stopping Loki’s plan at the pass to shut him out _again._ “But Loki—”

“But nothing. Go back to your room and leave me alone. Unless you are the one who needs comforting?” Loki broke into a sly grin.

Thor stood up straighter. “I need no such thing!” Thor huffed.

“Then leave me in peace.” Loki let his gaze drop and tried closing the door on him again, but Thor’s foot was still in the way. Loki’s attempts to shut the door seemed half-hearted, because the door just bounced off his foot without hurting him. After several more attempts, Loki directed a glare back up at Thor. “Stop that.”

“No. All you do now is hide away in your room or the library. We never play together anymore. Is there something wrong?”

“Yes,” Loki said cooly. “I don’t like you. Take a hint.” When he slammed the door against Thor’s foot this time, there was some muscle behind it and one of Thor’s toes got pinched. He snatched his foot back, allowing Loki to shut the door all the way, latch, and lock it.

When Thor realized what happened, he attention shifted from his throbbing toe and to the door in his face. “Loki!” He pounded on the door. “Stop being so childish and open up.”

When he let up on the pounding to get a reply, Loki’s voice came cold from the other side. “Go away Thor, leave me alone. I hate you.”

Thor’s hands went rigid on the door. He took a breath. “Did I do something to make you mad?” he ventured. He searched his mind desperately for a wrong he might have committed. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you Loki. Please allow me to apologize.”

The room beyond the door was silent. Thor pounded on the door again. “Loki!” He waited a pensive second, but there was still no reply. Thor touched his forehead to the door. “Please brother,” he said, only loud enough for Loki to hear. “I only wish to help.”

Thor waited at the door for a very long time, but Loki didn’t make a sound. If he was even still there. Thor perked up when he heard footsteps approaching from an ajoining hall and ran back to his room. He slipped inside and closed the door before he was caught, but as he crawled back into bed, he was left with his own thoughts. Loki hated him?

* * *

Loki listened to the guard or maid that walked by his door. Whoever it was, they finally chased Thor off. He was sitting next to his door, knees to his chest and one  of the blankets from his bed wrapped tightly around him. Thor was gone. This was good. He had gotten more and more nosey as the months went by. The nosier he got, the closer he got to Loki and, in turn, his secret. The secret that had to be kept at all costs. So he just had to keep Thor away. That was all. He had to do it as fast as possible, in the most brutal way possible. There was no turning back.

Loki pressed his eyes, which felt very hot, into his knees. He’d never hated lying so much.

* * *

“Good morning Loki.”

He stopped by the doorway into the family dining room and gave Frigga a polite smile. “Good morning mother.”

“How did you sleep?”

He sat down in his chair and turned to face her. She was in her usual chair, completely ready for the day. Her hair was smooth and her dress, the color of the ocean on a clear day, was unwrinkled. Thor was also there, sitting in his own chair, his hair still ruffled from sleep and his shirt rumpled. Loki avoided looking at him for long. “I slept well, thank you,” he lied smoothly.

Thor made a sound that suggested he was choking on his breakfast. Loki pointedly ignored him and took a hardroll to start out his meal with.

“Thor told me that he was awoken in the night when your sleep was disturbed.”

Loki glared at Thor across the table, who was looking rather grumpy himself. He ripped his roll in half, still staring straight at Thor, then looked down at his roll when he spread it with jam. “I believe it was the other way around. The only time my otherwise good sleep was interrupted was when Thor started hammering on my door.”

Thor’s smallish hand banged on the table, though only his own cutlery rattled. “That’s a lie!”

“Thor, please don’t yell at the table,” his mother scolded.

“What would I gain by lying?” Loki asked.

“I don’t know, but I heard you, I know I did!”

His roll looked appetizing, but it seemed it would have to wait. “Are you sure you didn’t wake yourself up?”

“That’s not what happened last night and we both know it.”

 _Why_ did he keep dragging on about this? ”Neither of us know it because it isn’t true. You seem to be very good at convincing yourself though.”

“I am not—!”

“Boys.”

Both of them turned to Frigga.

“Stop fighting. It isn’t worth it and it is unacceptable behavior at the table. Thor, eat your breakfast. Loki, is there anything you wish to tell me?”

He’d been about to pick up his roll to eat it, so he spun it around on his plate instead. He’d come to a serious decision last night and he doubted anything would change his mind. “I don’t want to learn magic, but thank you for offering.” His mother looked shocked, so he offered the explanation he came up with. “It was interesting for a bit, but I don’t think it would hold my attention long enough for it to be worth learning it.”

“I see.” She looked disappointed.

He chanced a look at Thor. The boy was staring at him, his gaping mouth revealing the bit of cheese he hadn’t swallowed yet. “Close your mouth,” Loki told him, parroting what other adults had said. “You’ll attract flies.”

Those were the last words he spoke to Thor of his own accord for a very long time.


	5. Relenting and Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor pulls out some of the last ammo he has to get Loki back. It works. Kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm shocked by all the reception this has gotten since the last time I posted a chapter. Did I hit some kind of milestone that made me show up in more searches? Is it because of Thor: Ragnarok? Either way, I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm glad so many people are enjoying this silly little AU of mine.

The next few months dragged terribly. Loki discovered it was both dull and exhausting to be average. If he didn’t stand out, no one would pay close enough attention to him to notice anything amiss. That left only his family to fool, which was it’s own challenge. Odin payed little attention to him compared to Thor, but Thor and Frigga turned out to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. She expressed concern over his mental well-being more and more as time went on and he had to work harder to put up a show of general happiness and contentment that she would buy, or at least stop bugging him about it for a while.

Thor seemed to notice something off about him too, but was unable to articulate it properly within his own mind, so he mostly bothered Loki to play with him or ask if he’d done something to make Loki mad. But once in a while, his narcissism would ebb away long enough for him to ask Loki if there was something bothering him. Of course, Loki brushed him off and shut down any potential conversation. It was not acceptable for him to scream “Yes!” and run sobbing into Thor or Frigga’s embrace when one of them asked if there was something the matter. Besides being forced to answer exactly what the trouble was, it was too much to ask for. _He_ wouldn’t want to hug a frost giant. How mad would they be if they found out and realized he acted like it didn’t matter?

That was part of the reason he sat by himself in his bedroom with a book one day when there was no school. He was sitting at his desk with a light, bent over the large reference book the librarians had let him borrow the other day and taking notes. His notebook about frost giants was filling up fast now. He’d stopped looking seriously for good frost giants months ago, the first page of the notebook completely blank except for the header at the top: Good Frost Giants. He’d worked hard on that header, making sure it was as neat and clean as possible. But when his original goal proved impossible, he moved on to learning as much about them as he could instead. The more he knew, the better he could hide.

“LOKI!”

He jumped in his chair when something rammed into his door. Repeatedly.

“Brother!”

Loki sighed. That could only be one person and he really didn’t have the initiative to try sending him away at the moment.

“It snowed!”

Loki sat rigidly in his seat. Thor was talking about building a snowman or something, but Loki payed little attention to that. He stood up and walked over to his window, which was blocked off. He’d shut it up last night when the temperature dropped, so he had to pull back the heavy curtains and unlatch the shutters. When he threw them open, he was nearly blinded after sitting in his dark room. He squinted as he adjusted to the bright light and looked out.

This wasn’t just any snow. It was the first snow of the season and they’d been dumped on. Everything was covered in a thick blanket of white. It looked gorgeous, white and glittering in the bright morning sun. Loki both wished that he could go out in it and play to his heart’s content during his favorite season of the year and that it would all immediately melt and never return.

“You promised!” Thor yelled through the door. Loki turned to listen better. “It doesn’t have to be a snow man, but please just come out!”

A promise that was so old, Loki could barely remember making it. Every year, during the first snowfall, unless circumstances prevented it, they went out and played in the snow. It was a promise that Loki desperately wanted to keep.

“This can be the last year if you like.”

Another piece. They would only stop when one grew bored of it. And they could only decide that the evening after. Loki looked out the window, then back at the door. He schooled his expression into one of indifference, walked over to his door and opened it.

Thor, who’d been flushed with excitement before, beamed. “Come on!” He seized Loki’s wrist and pulled. Loki stumbled out of his room and pulled his door shut. “But my books—” which were still open on his desk. He tried to avoid leaving them where someone could find them.

“They are just books, they won’t walk away!”

He supposed Thor had a point, it wasn’t like he’d left them in the library.

They gathered their cold-weather gear and bundled themselves up. Thor rushed through it, but Loki took his time. He didn’t want to have to worry even a little bit about getting cold out there. Apparently, Thor got bored just standing next to the door and waiting for him because he started helping Loki along. WhenLoki was satisfied that he was bundled up enough, they both went out into the cold white wonderland.

It was easy to forget the last few months out there. He caught himself laughing at Thor’s jokes and telling more in return. Despite the lack of power behind his throws compared to Thor, he still got ridiculously competitive for their snowball fights. The snow wasn’t sticky enough to build anything, their snowballs barely held together, so they spent their morning romping around. Thor found a large, flat piece of metal that was all curled up on one edge and they started using that to slide down every hill they could find. Most people were still in their homes, so they had free reign of the streets, which had their own share of hills and were very good places to go sliding down. They kept finding better places to go the further they went, so it wasn’t long before they were in an unfamiliar area.

“Do _you_ know where we are?” Thor asked.

“I know the way _back_.”

Thor laughed. “Isn’t this better than sitting in your room all day?”

Loki’s breath caught in his throat. He was having fun. He wasn’t _supposed_ to be having fun. Not with Thor. He got the last of his giddiness off his face. “Outdoor exercise is healthy at all times of the year,” he amended. He chanced a look at Thor.

He looked disappointed. “Do you want to go home?”

Loki looked around them. They had left some of the more majestic architecture of the area around the palace and entered an area with lots of houses which, while a marvel to look at anyway, were much smaller. He saw their tracks going back the way they came, his line of footprints slightly smaller but just as messy as Thor’s. The snow was all airy and light, the cold air brisk but refreshing. More people were venturing outside, especially children eager to play in the snow, but most seemed content burrowing up in their own homes like hibernating animals for the day. Then he looked at Thor.

He was pink in the cheeks from cold and excitement and bits of his blond hair were peeking out from his fur hat. His expression was barely optimistic. There had been seemingly endless energy that kept him almost vibrating as he waited for Loki’s answer, but Loki could see it begin to drain. This wasn’t what Thor wanted. This wasn’t what _Loki_ wanted. _One last time,_ he promised himself. He would go all out and be done with this, done with Thor, for good. But until then, he would enjoy every minute of it.

“I’m not ready to go home yet,” Loki said.

Thor beamed. “Then let us go! How many more hills can we slide down before lunch?”

They took off to find another hill and found one just around the corner, a narrow street that went straight down. It dumped them in a snowbank that they had to dig their way out of, though they laughed the whole time. Loki brushed himself off the best he could. Thor gave up on that after his cloak and took his hat off completely to shake the snow off. “Another?” Thor asked.

Loki quit slapping his mittens against one another and put them back on. “Another.”

They continued into an area with lots of small trees and lumps of various sizes in the snow. Loki stopped to dig into one of the smaller ones, uncovering the corner of a flowerbed.

“Brother!”

Loki looked up. Thor had gone on ahead and was waving to him with a free hand, the other still occupied by the improvised toboggan. Loki used Thor’s trail of footprints to walk over. Thor had found another hill to try. It started off steep, but it flattened out towards the bottom, which looked to be a large, open field. No trees to run into and spoil the rest of the day.

“Want to try it?”

“Yes.” Thor put the sled down and they got on, Thor in the back because he was taller, and pushed themselves over the crest of the hill. Down they went.

The ground under them was smooth, further softened by the snow, but the speed was enough to make up for it. The wind nearly whipped his hat off, so Loki held onto it with one hand, the other gripping Thor’s knee in hopes that he wouldn’t fall off.

It took a while for them to slow down, but they eventually came to a stop at the bottom, in the middle of the clearing.

Thor started laughing. Once the adrenaline rush left him, Loki smiled a bit. This was fun, this was—

CRACK.

Loki realized what that was as the ground collapsed under them.

* * *

It was cold. It wasn’t so cold that he couldn’t think, couldn’t move, not like he’d been warned, but it definitely was cold. He swam in the direction the direction he thought was up and hit a flat barrier that gave a bit. Ice. He opened his eyes. It wasn’t like swimming in summer, he could see very little. But there was one spot that was brighter. He tried swimming towards it, but his arms were stuck. Right, his cloak. He didn’t bother with the pin and just pulled it over his head. Unhindered, he reached the bright spot just as his lungs were screaming for fresh air. He broke the surface of the pond and looked around. The icy crust had broken up and there was a layer of slush and ice chunks floating in a channel that ran almost all the way to the base of the hill. Probably a trail of where their sled had gone across the ice. But there was one thing he didn’t see. Thor hadn’t come back up yet. “Thor!”

Not even an echo answered him.

Either the water was warmer than he thought or he was just getting used to it, because he barely even thought about it before he took a deep breath and dove back under.

It was as dark as he expected under there. There was a trail of murky light going back towards the shore, but the rest of the water was like ink. He spotted their sled, which had drifted toward the shore while it sunk, being one of the most clear objects in the murky water; it stuck up straight from the bottom like a monolith. Or a grave stone. He traced the direction Thor would have gone, based on how the sled sunk and saw a boot just barely floating inside the light. Loki swam over, surfaced to take another breath and dove back down. He shed his mittens after he had trouble getting a good grip and towed Thor by the ankle into the light. He pulled off Thor’s cloak, it wouldn’t warm him any when they reached the surface and only be in the way in the water. Thor’s face was blank and his eyes closed, which explained why he wasn’t struggling. Loki grabbed him with one hand by the wrist and pulled him to the surface. He struggled to keep both their heads above the water and slush as he swam for shore. Never had their difference in height been so obvious.

When his feet finally touched bottom, progress came much more quickly. He dragged Thor up on shore, out of the water and thought fast. Thor needed to get warm and he needed to breath and Loki could do nothing about the first, so he screamed, over and over again for help while he tried to remember what he was supposed to do for Thor. It came to him in an instant. Something about the stomach. If he pushed on something at the right angle, Thor might spit up the water.

Loki kneeled next to him and had to give several desperate attempts before he felt something shift. Thor shuddered and Loki rolled him away onto his side just in time. Thor started coughing up stuff, some of it definitely not pond water, but coughing meant he was breathing. They were halfway there. Thor was shaking, though from cold or not, Loki wasn’t sure. “Thor? How do you feel?"

Thor cleared his throat with one last cough and rolled onto his back. His eyes widened and he flinched away. Thor’s words felt like a knife in the stomach. “Frost giant.”

Loki looked down at his hands. They were a deep, even blue.

* * *

Pain and cold and fear. And whatever he was coughing up, it hurt. The urge finally abated and he rolled over and blinked at the bright light everywhere. Why was it so bright? What was that rushing in his ears? He heard an echo of someone’s voice. Who was talking to him?

His eyesstarted adjusting and things started coming into focus. There was someone kneeling over him that stood out from the gray sky. Someone blue, he realized as his vision sharpened. Someone with red eyes. “Frost giant,” he spat.

This was bad. He was so cold, he couldn’t move and he was staring the first real frost giant he’d ever seen in the face. He couldn’t fight, couldn’t—

It started screaming. Thor was stuck there, shaking heavily from cold and fear, but he started trying to size it up. It didn’t take long, the frost giant was small. Too small.

It stopped screaming and in the sudden silence, Thor could hear distant yelling. The tiny frost giant stood and Thor barely managed to see what it was wearing before it ran, quickly leaving his field of vision. Asgardian clothing. Why would a frost giant be wearing those? And why did the embroidery on it look familiar? It was runes, all jumbled together. He kept trying to unscramble them in his mind

A rush of noise met his hears and he lost his concentration. Maybe the cold was finally getting to him.

The noise was voices. So many of them, and most kept saying his name. He waslifted from the ground and all the cold leeched away with a sudden, almost uncomfortable heat. It was like a shock to his brain. The runes that went around and around the tunic and in his head in bright green thread. Thor realized what they were on the edge of sleep.

L. . .O. . .K. . .I

Loki. . .Loki. . .Loki. . .

* * *

He was warm when he woke up this time. He opened his eyes and found himself in his own chambers, tucked neatly into bed, the blankets and furs all piled on him. He tried to look around and was suddenly hit with several dull aches from all over his body. His groans alerted someone else in the room, who rushed to his bedside. They put a hand on his chest to steady him. Thor quieted and opened his eyes proper. His mother was standing over him, a tense look to her face. “Settle down Thor, you’re all right now.”

His voice was barely a rasp, but she seemed to understand, because she answered the question he was trying to ask. “You were sliding down a hill and went through the ice on a pond. A few families that lived nearby heard you screaming for help and found you. The cold made you very ill, but you’ll fully recover.” She laid a hand on his forehead. So, he would get better and his aches would leave. But there was something missing. What was he forgetting about? He thought back to the sledding, which felt like weeks ago to him. There was something else. Wasn’t Loki with him?

His mouth still felt a little clumsy, but he managed the most important bit. “Loki?”

His mother’s already tense face grew grimmer. “We have been searching everywhere, but your brother has not been found.”

Thor couldn’t move yet, but a whimper escaped his throat.

“They found his mittens, hat and cloak, but no sign of Loki.”

Thor spoke again. “Where?” He still stumbled, but it was becoming easier very quickly. “The mittens, and. . .”

His mother looked pensive before she answered. “All of his things were in the pond.”

There was still something tickling the back of his mind as he imagined Loki, trapped under the ice, struggling to surface. It just didn’t seem right.

It came back in a rush. The tiny frost giant wearing Loki’s clothes, with Loki’s voice. Loki his brother. Loki the frost giant.

It must have shown on his face, because his mother leaned in close. “I’m sorry dear.”

They thought his brother had drowned in the lake. He thought his brother was a frost giant. Thor wasn’t sure which was worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do also want to apologize for the length between posting chapters. I thought I would be done with this story, a couple of one-shots, and working on the next major installment by now, but real life got in the way. I'd like to think that things have calmed down now for a while, but at this point, who knows. So hopefully, especially with the ending that I just left you with, I'll be able to get the next chapter up a little quicker.
> 
> In the meantime, you can bug me over on my main Tumblr @quietblizzard. Popping onto the phone app for a few minutes a couple of times a day is much easier than finding time to use my laptop at home (hence why it took so long to get this chapter out).


	6. Decisions and Determination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. It's been a while, and I left you guys in a bad spot. I. . .
> 
> Yeah.
> 
> (Hopefully previous edits were enough, because I'm out of spoons for the day.)

Thor lay in his bed for a long time, thinking. His mother thought he kept drifting in and out of a doze, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But she stayed and kept watch over him, for how long Thor wasn’t sure. His windows were all shuttered tight and covered in curtains and there didn’t seem to be any clocks in his room. But he spent however much time it was trying to gather his thoughts about Loki.

He couldn’t get it to make sense. The cold couldn’t just turn you into a frost giant, that was just stupid. The problem was, he didn’t know much about them, that was always Loki’s domain, especially that notebook.

Thor’s eyes widened when he remembered it. Loki’s book full of notes about frost giants. He’d been working hard on it since spring and maybe this was why. Loki knew the whole time.

With that revelation, all sorts of things that Thor had noticed the last couple of seasons started coming together. Was this why he started keeping to himself all the time and avoiding Thor? Why his knowledge of them kept him ravenous in the library but ambivalent in every other context? If that were the case and Loki knew the whole time, what were his motives in all this? What did he plan to do? Did he have a plan? Thor had a feeling that he might get some answers from that notebook only a room away, second only to Loki himself. But he wanted some info first.

He couldn’t ask his mother to get the book for him, she’d want to know why and he had no idea what to tell her. He’d have to get it himself, but his mother definitely wouldn’t let him leave the room to get it himself. He had to trick her into leaving, something he wasn’t very good at. Loki was the one always pulling things like that. What would he do?

His stomach grumbled, giving him an idea.

“Mother?”

She looked up from the book she was reading. “Yes?”

“I’m hungry.”

She closed her book and picked up the mug sitting on the bedside table. “Would you like more tea?”

Thor made a face. He _definitely_ didn’t want more tea. “No, I want food. Real food. Could you get me something from the kitchen? Please?” he added.

His mother stood and rested a hand on his good arm. “Wait here. I will return shortly.”

Thor waited until his door closed behind her, then he started wiggling out from under the blankets. Several had been removed after he’d first woken up at his his insistence because he’d gotten too hot, but it was still a bit of a shock every time he got a bit more out from under them. It was slow going with only one good arm. His left arm, which had been under the blankets, was loosely bandaged and in a sling, more so that Thor wouldn’t pick at the burn on his wrist than for any sort of healing purposes. It had been his only injury that hadn’t completely healed after a liberal application of a healing stone. His small and tired body could only take so much at once, his mother had said, so the leftover healing that was needed was left up to him, as it was minor. So it was like that that Thor scooted out of his bed. He shivered when his feet hit the rug, then set himself. The stone floors would only be worse. He ran across the room to his door and looked out. There was no one in the hall. Leaving his own door ajar, he ran down the hall to Loki’s door, which was shut. Thor shifted his weight back and forth between his two feet to avoid having either one rest on the icy floor for too long while the opened the door.

Loki’s room looked untouched. Everything looked neat and clean except Loki’s desk, which was still covered in books and papers from before. His room was especially cold. The window had been left open and Thor could see it was dark outside. He didn’t bother with a light or candle, instead opening the door wide enough for the hall lights to illuminate Loki’s desk. Thor went directly to the desk and found the notebook sitting open on top. Thor didn’t bother reading anything before he shut it and stuffed it between his left arm and his side, up near his armpit so that he could carry it without it being in the way. He hurried back out again and shut the door against the bitter cold. He went back into his room and shut the door again almost all the way, just like his mother had left it. He tossed the book onto the still-warm bed before he climbed back in and shoved the book in amongst the pillows that were propping him up. He had himself mostly tucked in when his mother returned with a steaming bowl of stew.

Even his mother tired eventually and she retired to her rooms, promising to come check on him again soon and telling him to call for the maid outside his door if he needed anything in the meantime. She tucked him in proper again, put out the candle on his table and left. Thor feigned sleep for a minute after she left, then tried to stealthily look around his room. The door was shut and the room empty, so Thor abandoned his charade and pulled out the book. It took him several tries to light the candle with only one good hand and some half-hearted help with the other, but he managed it in the end. Then he started to read.

The first page reminded him of Loki’s original intentions, finding good frost giants. Except for the title, it was blank. Until he got to the back, it was the only page in there that wasn’t full. There were notes upon notes every page, some accompanied by drawings. About midway through, Thor found sketches in graphite and separated by tissue paper that detailed the internal anatomy of frost giants versus Asgardians. He was immediately reminded of the thin book he’d pulled for Loki at the library. This must have been the reason his brother had looked ill at the mention of the book’s contents, but accepted the book anyway.

As Thor skimmed, he started noticing a pattern. There were notes and asides that sounded like they were Loki’s words, not something from a book. Lots of ‘don’t do this’ or ‘avoid this,’ sounding more and more like instructions as the books went. Eventually, Thor found a couple pages titled only ‘Rules’ that were jammed with text. As Thor read through them, Loki’s actions the last few months became clear. He knew why Loki refused to learn magic, became suddenly eager in combat lessons despite his lack of skill and why his distanced himself completely from his own brother.

_‘Do not get too close to anyone, lest they learn the truth.’_

_‘Appear completely average. If you are boring, no one will pay you any mind.’_

_‘Magic is not traditionally for boys. Avoid.’_

_‘Insist that you hate him. This seems to disturb him greatly.’_

_‘Say that you are going to the library, then hide outside. He never thinks to look out there.’_

On it went. The more Thor read, the sadder he got. His brother sounded nothing like the frost giants he’d heard stories about all his life, not angry or violent at all. Loki sounded terrified. He kept reading until his eyelids were drooping, then until he caught himself falling asleep. He hid the book in his pillows again, blew out the candle and went to sleep.

* * *

 

The next morning was much more interesting. His mother brought him breakfast and a healer came to check on him. This was the first time he’d been awake for a check-up, so he was a little nervous. It ended up being pretty anti-climatic though, because almost everything was healed. He did get to see one of the scars though, which were as baffling to him as they were to the healers. He ran his finger around the edge of the white circle of skin on his stomach the size of a small plate.

“Do you remember anything about the accident?” the healer asked him.

Thor had long decided to keep Loki’s secret, so he skipped over the one part about it that he remembered very clearly. “I remember sliding down the hill with Loki,” he said. “Then it got really cold and I woke up in my bed.”

“Well, if you do ever remember more, it would be interesting to hear. I’d like to know how youmanaged to get such unusual injuries. I just can’t think of anything to explain them.”

In addition to the one on his stomach, there were two other smaller ones, one each on his shoulder and hip that he couldn’t quite see laying down, plus the one still healing on his wrist.

“Did they all look like this?” Thor asked in disgust after she removed the wrappings on that one. The skin of his wrist was pink and puffy all the way around, though the band of it was narrower on the underside.

“The others did when you came in,” the healer said as she examined the injury. “This one has healed quite a bit since I first saw it.”

“What did it look like?” he asked when she started wrapping it again. “Was it bleeding?”

“It looked like you would have lost your hand had you been brought to me five minutes later.”

Thor’s curiosity drained away. “Ah.”

His mother stepped into the conversation and started asking more technical questions, so Thor let his mind wander back to Loki. He still had not been found as far as he knew. Thor thought he’d seen him run away from him, understandable considering what he’d called him, but where was he now? If he really was a frost giant, he wouldn’t freeze to death, but that was about all Thor knew. And searching him would be pointless by himself. He knew Loki wasn’t in the pond, but how would he explain why he was looking elsewhere? And why was it taking so long for them to find Loki anyway? Whenever someone was missing, they usually just asked—

“What about Heimdall?” he blurted out. “Why don’t we just ask Heimdall where Loki is?”

The women paused in their conversation. His mother seemed to contemplate something before she spoke. “We have. Loki keeps moving before anyone can get to him.”

“So he’s alive?” Thor asked.

“He is, but Heimdall says that something is interfering with his sight that prevents him from confirming any more than that.”

Thor slumped back into his pillows. The women kept chatting for a while longer, then the healer left. His mother brought him several books to read, but he was not Loki. They could not hold his attention. He had all sorts of anxious energy bubbling up from sitting in bed so long and from wondering what became of Loki. Thor let out a frustrated grunt. “Can’t I go _do_ something?”

His mother lowered her book. “You are in no condition to play as you normally do. Andwith your brother missing, we can not afford to have you wander off as well.” When he’d asked the same question what felt like hours ago, she had more patience. Now, it sounded like she was on her last of it.

Thor slumped back into his pillows. Loki’s book, still hidden in there, poked into his back. What would it take for him to get out?

* * *

 

Thor jolted awake from a snooze. His room was dark. He was warm, in his own bed, not frozen on Jotunheim. Loki was not there and he definitely wasn’t fighting him. As Thor calmed himself, he lit his candle. He was completely alone in his room.

After he used the rest room, he pulled Loki’s book from the pillows and went over to his neglected desk. He shoved the scraps of paper littering it off the side and found a stick of graphite. He used one of the paper scraps to write a note for his mother and added something to the book before he shut it up again and got dressed. He had a plan and there was no telling when he would have a chance at it again. Careful of his left arm, which was still in a sling, he put on his warmest clothes, two pairs of socks and tucked the book under his bad arm. He poked his head out his bedroom door and scanned the corridor. He could see no one out there, so he left his room, shutting the door behind him.

All the corridors proved to be deserted, so he made it to one of the entrances without any trouble. That was where it got tricky. It was a smaller door, tightly locked and without guards, so he wouldn’t have to worry about that, but there was another issue, and the long line of cloaks hanging up on hooks above his head was only one of them.

Thor tucked Loki’s book into his belt, found a lantern and lit that to aid him in his task. He searched the row of cloaks for two child-sized ones. He got them off their hooks with some trouble, then tracked down two of each of a pair of mittens, hats and scarves. Was sneaking out in the middle of the night to search for his brother a foolish thing to do? It would seem so later, but Thor never was very good at doing the smart thing.

The extra hat and mittens went down his front, between shirt and tunic and he wrapped himself up in first the cloak and scarf for Loki, then his own. His brother would surely be cold when he found him. When he was finally completely bundled up, he found a key for the door and let himself out. He locked the door behind him, put the key in his boot for safekeeping and set out into the night.

The bulk of the extra layers did him some good that he had not anticipated. The bulk kept him extra warm, but it also seemed to help him get by without being bothered. There were few people out and about, but none of them stopped him. No one questioned why someone of his height was outside in the middle of the night. His scarf, partially wrapped over he head because his neck only had so much room, probably helped. Anyone would have stopped a young prince of Asgard.

The streets were clear of snow and mostly dry, but there were still occasional piles of it and the roofs of buildings were still covered in it, so it hadn’t melted. But the cleanliness was a surprise. How long had he been shut up in his room?

His lantern wasn’t really needed, a few of the buildings had lights outside, so he could see well enough to avoid running into people and the occasional patch of ice.

He rounded a corner and bumped into something, hard, and he fell back on his rear.

“Excuse me,” he said. He righted his dropped lantern, then looked toward the hand offered. He followed the arm up to the person’s face and froze.

“I believe the fault is mine, young prince,” Heimdall said. “I am the one that could see you coming.”

Thor sat on the ground, unsure what to say. Of course Heimdall would have seen him, he would have seen him sneak out of the palace. Heimdall wiggled his fingers. Thor took his offered hand and let Heimdall pull him up. He picked up his lantern. “Are you going to tell my parents?”

“No. I don’t think this is something they need to know. However, there is something I would like to speak to you about. Can you spare some time to talk?”

Thor looked behind him. There was no one from the palace following him. “I suppose.” He didn’t think Loki would get any colder waiting and maybe if he listened to what Heimdall had to say, he wouldn’t run and tell his parents what Thor was up to.

“We’d best have this conversation off the street.”

He led Thor into a tavern. It had a few patrons in it, making Thor wonder again what the time was, so they had their choice of tables. Heimdall selected one off to the side, with raised partitions between it and another section. A table you sat at when you didn’t want to be overheard. As they sat down in opposite chairs, Thor sitting on his heels to give him a bit of additional height, the barman brought Heimdall a small mug of something frothy. He ordered something for Thor, which was brought promptly without comment. Thor tasted it. It was hot cider.

“Now tell me young one, what are you doing out all by yourself?” Heimdall asked.

Thor pulled off the scarf he had on top. The cider was doing an excellent job of warming him. “You saw me leave the palace, right?” he asked glumly.

“Yes, but I can read your thoughts no better than you can read mine. All I know for sure is that you sneaked out wearing two sets of clothes and that you’re hiding a very interesting book tucked in your belt.”

Thor froze, his fingers tight around his mug. Of course he’d seen that, Heimdall saw everything. But that meant— “Did you read the book too?” he exclaimed.

Several other people in the tavern turned in their spots to glare. Heimdall held a finger to his lips. “Our conversation is no longer private when you speak so loudly.” The disturbed patrons returned to to their drinks when Thor repeated his question quietly. “You read the book while I was reading it, right?”

“I did, just as I saw it while it was being written. I watched your reactions as you read through it and I saw what happened when Loki pulled you out of the water the other day. I can see that you have made the connection, you wrote it yourself into his book, yet you search for him armed with warm clothes, not weapons. Why?”

Thor didn’t even have to think about his answer. “Because he is my brother!” he hissed. “We have been raised together, we’ve played together and he saved my life. The fact that he’s a f—” He bit back on the words, mindful of the tavern they were in. Heimdall knew what they were speaking of. “He might be one of them, but that changes nothing for me. It shouldn’t matter.” He glared into Heimdall’s ever stoic gaze. Perhaps it was because the man could see everything, but it was impossible to to see anything in his face. Was Heimdall angry at his words? Pleased? “It doesn’t matter, right?” he asked. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure.

“No,” Heimdall said. “In this case, it does not.” Thor relaxed his posture at took a sip of his cider as Heimdall continued. “That is why I wanted to speak with you. I wanted to know exactly how you felt about all this before I sent you on your way.”

Thor put down his mug with a thunk. “You mean you are not returning me to the palace?”

“Not this time. I have actually been hoping to speak to you about this since you awoke after the accident. I had hoped you would react like this, but I wasn’t sure if you would come to the conclusion on your own. I’m glad you did. It saves some time and your brother’s might be running out.”

Thor frowned. “But if he doesn’t get cold—”

“He is sure to be hungry and thirsty. Their kind can survive no better without sustenance than we can. I’d best give you the location now.”

“But that has done no good for father’s search parties. Mother says he keeps running away.”

“They make noise as they approached. They believe he wants to be found.”

“But he doesn’t,” Thor guessed.

“Correct. He fears that you have told them everything. That is why you must be the one to find him. All the reassurances in Asgard will do him no good if they do not come from you. You are the one who discovered his secret, so you must be the one who tells him that you care for him anyway.”

Thor nodded, but then his expression soured slightly. “I suppose I will have to sneak up on him.”

“Worry not. He is tired now, it will be much easier to do than all of your previous attempts I’ve seen. But we’d best hurry, before he moves again.”

Heimdall gave him an insulated flask of more hot cider, this one for Loki, and a set of directions. They separated, words of thanks on Thor’s lips, and he set off down the street with his destination firmly in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws a giant lampshade at Heimdall's head*


	7. Lost and Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for taking SO LONG to update this. I have about a dozen excuses (including that I straight up forgot about this story), but I'm sure those of you who have been following this don't want to hear those, you just want the chapter you've been waiting for.
> 
> This chapter is far from perfect, but the last thing I need is another reason to put off updating.

The path that Heimdall sent him on was a winding one, one that would put Thor in a place that would make it difficult for Loki to run away.

He found the storage facility that Heimdall told him about, but he did not enter through the main doors. There was a side door that Heimdall told him was left unlocked, the door Loki had entered through. Thor turned down his lantern and put it on the ground while he opened the door.

The building was dimly lit during the night hours, but Thor wondered why they bothered lighting it at all. The place held nothing but empty crates and barrels, waiting to be used. Thor walked down the aisles following the directions and the dim lights that lined the aisle until he came to another outside door. This one was harder to open because Thor had to fight a stiff breeze to push it open wide enough for him to get through. When he got out the other side, he kept a firm hold on the handle so he could shut it slowly. If the wind slammed it, Loki would likely hear and run.

He managed to shut the door with only a click. His good arm felt like jelly now, so he carried the lantern with the one in the sling as he continued. He switched it back to his good hand when he made it to the broken, empty crate Heimdall told him about, the one that marked where Loki would be. The path he started following through the boxes was open on one side, the side away from the building. Thor understood why Heimdall told him to take the detour. Loki would have seen him coming if he’d walked around the outside of the building.

Thor rounded the final corner and lifted his lantern. It was a small space between several odd-shaped crates that were piled over his head and right in the middle, out of the wind, was a little figure curled up on himself.

“Loki?”

He lifted his head and all the things that Thor had planned to say flew right out of his head. He supposed he still didn’t quite believe what all the evidence had been pointing to until that moment when the lantern light showed him skin bluer than the sky and eyes that were a bright red, widening as they took in who was standing before them. Loki stumbled to his feet and tripped as he backed away. He landed on his butt and scooted backward until he ran into a crate.

Thor felt downright ill. The stories he’d been told had painted a picture of fierce monsters that he would face in battle, but seeing Loki cower in front of him, _he_ felt like the monster. His stomach was churning as he set down his lantern to reach into his cloak. Loki pressed himself harder against the crate. Thor paused, then pulled out the book. Loki whimpered and shut his eyes when Thor held out the book. Thor did the only thing he could think of, stand there and wait. There were still no words coming to mind, so this was the only thing he could think of, and it was supposed to be his back-up.

Several tense moments of silence passed, then Loki raised his head. There was still terror all over his face as he looked first at the book, then up at Thor.

“It’s your book,” Thor said. He saw a flash of recognition in Loki’s eyes, so he continued with whatever appeared in his mind. “I noticed you forgot something, so I wrote it in there. I hope you don’t mind.”

Loki stared at the book, looked up at Thor for only a moment and then took the book from him. Thor picked up the lantern and held it so Loki could read, but his brother just kept staring at the book in his hands.

“Open it up,” Thor told him.

Loki cast another nervous glance at him, then opened the front cover. He reached for the top corner to turn the pace, but he froze half-way there. Thor heard Loki’s breath catch and he looked at the page too, though he knew what was there. Under the title, in his own smudged handwriting, Thor had started his brother’s list of good front giants with the name ‘Loki Odinson.’

Loki let out a little hiccup. But he didn’t speak, so Thor was the one to fill in the silence. “You should have put your name down first thing. I—”

Loki let out another chocking noise that Thor recognized as a sob.

“You’re the one that pulled me out of the pond, correct?

Loki gave him a shaky nod.

“I don’t know any bad people that save other people from drowning, especially not their brothers, so you definitely belong on that list.”

That was what set him off. Loki started openly crying, through his tears froze on his cheeks. Thor startled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

This only seemed to make it worse. Thor set the lantern down and crouched down right in front of him. He used his mittened hand to pat Loki’s knee it what was supposed to be a comforting way, but even through the mitten, he could feel a biting cold that made his new scars itch. He kept it brief and did not let his contact linger. “Please don’t cry.”

Loki stopped, through when he looked up, he wiped a bit of frost off his cheeks and bit down on some more hiccuping sobs.

“I came to bring you home.”

Loki looked at him, then stared at his bare hands. “I can’t.”

“Well, of course not like that. We have to figure out how to change you back first.”

His brother curled up on himself again, though he kept his head up. “What if I can’t?”

“Then we will come up with another idea. Have you ever changed before?”

“Only once. When I touched the casket of Ancient Winters. But I didn’t do anything to change back.”

Thor scrunched up his face. That was not help. “What if you just think really hard about being an Asgardian?”

Loki glared. “What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? I’ve wished for nothing else all summer.”

Thor scratched an itch on his nose with the cuff of his mitten. “Maybe you can’t just wish for it. Perhaps it’s your magic that switched you?”

“Maybe.” He closed his eyes and frowned with concentration. There was a long minute where nothing happened, but then, the tip of Loki’s nose wasn’t blue anymore. Thor lifted the lantern and saw that the tips of his brother’s fingers were turning a pinkish color. But then, a great shudder went though Loki’s body and all the progress he’d made reversed in an instant.

“Why did you stop?” Thor asked. “You were doing so well!”

“I just got cold all of a sudden,” Loki said.

“That’s no surprise. It’s very cold out tonight.”

“Is it?” Loki looked legitimately confused. Thor looked over Loki’s manner of dress properly. He had on only a linen shirt and woolen pants and tunic and no winter gear other than his boots, which were crusted with either snow or ice, the leather several shades darker than they were supposed to be dry. The fabric of his clothes looked stiff and it too was covered in frost. It was Loki’s hair though that made Thor realized what was going on. He touched it with his mittened hand, going for one of the ends of Loki’s surprisingly smooth hair. It was frozen solid. “You don’t feel chilled?Not even a little bit?”

“I feel fine.”

Thor thought about itfor a moment. “Maybe it’s because you are. . .blue right now.” Loki twitched at his word choice, but he continued. “When you’re like that, you don’t notice the weather. So when you change back, you feel the cold as any other Asgardian would.”

“That makes sense.”

“Don’t worry, I brought extra warm clothes for you.” He put down his lantern ad started fussing with the cloak pin. He’d had a great deal of trouble getting on and about the same amount getting it off. “Loki, can you help?”

Loki finally uncurled himself to aid him, but froze only inches away. “Move your hand.” Thor buried his hand back into his cloak and Loki unstuck the simple pin easily. Thor took over from there. “What happened to your arm?” Loki asked, vaguely gesturing to his sling.

“It’s an injury from the accident, it’s practically better.” Thor put his hand down the front of his tunic to retrieve the hat and mittens he’d stowed there. “Something on my wrist.” He put the knitted items in his sling, where he could get at them in a hurry. He looked back to Loki, who was staring at his hands. “What is it?”

“Where you got hurt on your wrist, did you get injuries like that anywhere else?”

“Yes, but—Loki, what is it?”

His brother was still staring at his own hands and shaking.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my fault,” he whispered.

Thor frowned. “How is it your fault that I got hurt? I was the one that insisted on a sliding down that hill.”

“I pulled you out of the water by that wrist.” He was shaking worse and his breaths were coming in hiccuping gasps. He buried his face in his knees. “I burn everything I touch.”

Thor looked down at his wrist, which wasstill wrapped up and warm. Now that he thought about it, the mark did look a little like a handprint. He renewed his grip on the cloaks and scooted closer. He could hear Loki whisper a dozen things all in a rush. He had trouble picking out any full phrases, but several sounded like apologies. “I’m not mad at you.”

Loki quieted and looked up. “Why not?” His breathing, though still hiccupp-ey, was picking up. “I hurt you badly enough that a healing stone can’t fix you! Why aren’t you mad?” he screamed.

He was taking another big breath, probably to continue screaming, so Thor stopped him with his own words. “Because you saved my life!” Loki shrunk back at his yell, but he stayed silent, so Thor continued. “If you had not pulled me out of the ice, I would have drowned. Any injury that occurred after does not matter.”

Loki rubbed his eyes, though he did not seem to be crying.

“Please try again. Ah!” He tapped the flask on his hip. “I brought hot cider. You can have it now if you think it would help.”

Loki shook his head. “I’ll freeze it if I try to drink it now.” He shut his eyes and concentrated and this time, the change started much faster. As soon as his brother started shaking again, Thor threw both cloaks around him. He wasn’t sure how he would deal with the mittens, but then Loki half stood and stumbled towards him. Thor caught him and held him in a one-armed embrace as he shook with cold. She he stopped trembling so much, Thor asked, “Would you like the cider now?”

He felt Loki’s nod, so he stepped away to retrieve the bottle. He game it to Loki and held the cloaks close to his brother’s body with his one hand while Loki used his two shaking ones to open the bottle A little steam came out the top and Loki licked his dry lips before he took a sip. He recoiled and Thor wondered if it was too hot, but before he could voice his question, Loki went back for more.

He must have drained half the flask before he was finally finished and put the lid back on. He was still shivering a bit, but they weren’t the same violent tremors they had been before. He took back hold on the cloaks and looked at Thor as Thor tucked the flask in Loki’s belt.

“You gave me both cloaks,” he noted.

“I did. You needed both of them.”

“I suppose I did. But now you are getting cold.”

Thor felt another shiver go through him. “So I am.” He spotted the dropped cloak pin on the ground, only slightly embedded in the tightly-packed snow. He picked it up and wiped the snow off on the hem of his tunic. “Let’s pin one on you at least.”

Between them two of them, they pinned the inner cloak around Loki and used the extra pin Thor had in his sling to put the outer one on Thor. Loki put on the mittens and scarf Thor brought and took another warming sip of cider.

“Are you ready to go home?” Thor asked.

Loki looked him right in the eyes and smiled for the first time that night. “Yes. Let’s go home.”


End file.
